Just For Fun

So…what is the Monday Poll?

Well, it isn’t exactly a poll. It’s more of a constantly evolving (devolving?), somewhat random list of questions I’ve been putting out to readers every Monday morning for the past 11 (!) years. (It’s like a kickstart for your brain.) I’ve always enjoyed reading your answers in the comments, and I hope you enjoy reading mine.

1. What was the best class you ever took as an adult?

Definitely hip-hop dance class. Before I moved to Novato I was going two or three times a week pretty consistently. My friend Jackie taught the class at a nearby dance studio, and it was just a bunch of adult ladies who would get their hip-hop on for an hour. It was so much fun! I always felt a little uncomfortable doing ballet and jazz, but hip-hop always felt right.

2. If you went to college, how did you decide where to go?

To be honest, a lot was dictated by distance and finances, and most of the schools I applied to were California public schools because they were in my family’s budget. I went to UC Davis, and let me say first that I’m eternally grateful that I got to go to school at all. Oh, my gosh, so, so thankful. I really wanted to go to UCLA, but my parents felt it as too far away, and they basically sat me down and said Davis was what they’d pay for, and I could take it or leave it. So I took it!

I was so young at the time and didn’t really know how to advocate for myself or explain what I wanted and why, so I did what they wanted me to do. In retrospect, it all worked out. Davis was a good school, and I made some great friends, too.

3. Pom-poms and tassels: yes or no?

YES! Brightly colored pom-poms and tassels in a rainbow of colors. I saw them all over the place at DSW yesterday, and now I want a margarita on the beach somewhere. And a caftan.

4. What’s a rumor you’re inclined to believe?

Please beauty gods, let it be true! Let the Rose Oil Hand Cream come back to TJ’s in time for Mother’s Day. *making a million little prayer hands right now*

5. Last awkward encounter with someone?

I’m inclined to say that all of my encounters are awkward, but the last really awkward one was at the mall last weekend. There was a young woman holding the cutest little baby girl who looked about six or seven months. The baby was wearing a tutu, tights and Mary Janes, and had little pieced ears and a bow in her hair. I saw her and was like, “AHHH! SQUISHY BABY FACE,” and as I was ooh-ing and ah-ing over this adorable little baby, I said, “Oh, your daughter is so cute!” Then the young lady said, “She’s my little sister…” Whoops!

Patience

“Patience is a virtue.” I say this to Tabs and Connor all the time (why are little animals always in a hurry?), but I forget that it also applies to me.

Be extra patient with yourself this week, ‘k? You’ll get where you need to go in due time. 🙂

Have a wonderful week!

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

P.S. Here are the questions to copy and paste with your answers in a comment:

1. What was the best class you ever took as an adult?
2. If you went to college, how did you decide where to go?
3. Pom-poms and tassels: yes or no?
4. What’s a rumor you’re inclined to believe?
5. Last awkward encounter with someone?

You can go ahead and tell the awards committee that I’m ready to except my Genius of the Year Award ? because I only recently — and by that I mean yesterday — realized that chamomile plants smell like chamomile tea.

OK, I know, but it wasn’t obvious to me…

TJ’s had these dainty white and yellow cut flowers that I thought were daisies at first, but nope, chamomile flowers. So I brought a bouquet home.

I’ve never had a bouquet of chamomile flowers before, and when I was cutting them and putting them in a vase, they smelled just like chamomile tea.

MIND BLOWN.

It’s the leaves that are the most fragrant, though, not the flowers, so if you pull off a leaf and rub it between your fingers, ooh! — it smells just like the tea.

I don’t know why this is so shocking to me, but it is…

Also blowing my mind is the fact that it’s Saturday, and I’m REALLY happy about that. 🙂 This was an extra long one for me because I tried a different morning schedule (Connor made me do it; she’s been waking up earlier), and I’m still trying to adjust. Gotta stay loose and flexible. (Sounds like I’m talking about yoga, haha!)

It’s true, though. I had been doing my blog post writing, talking to customers of the store, and taking care of life things like bill paying and whatnot at the crack of dawn before Connor woke up between about 6 a.m. and 8, but she’s been waking up earlier this week. Her room is right next door to my room, which is my office, and when I hear her start calling “Mama? Mama?” I’ll get her up, change her, hug her, chat with her for a bit, and then give her something to eat. Then I’ll put her back in her crib to play quietly for another hour or two, which she does. She carries on complete conversations with her theater troupe of plush toys, which we call “the babies.” She can be pretty industrious.

Anyway, I’m veering off topic, but what else is new? If you’re heading to Trader Joe’s this weekend, keep an eye out for those chamomile flowers, man. ‘Cause they smell GOOD.

Right now, I’m all about coffee, and I’m on my second cup. Hang out for a spell, and drop me a line in the comments. Here’s some light reading you might also enjoy…

• I’m kind of a nosy noodle, which is probably why I like those “what’s in my purse” videos a little too much, as well as this story on what a drag queen keeps in his makeup bag. It’s not just a run-down of what powder works best for baking or what contour cream sculpts cheeks that can cut glass, either. It’s a meditation on the power of makeup to transform and evolve and how it ties one person to a long tradition of painting faces.

  It’s the article that moved me the most this week.

• OK, how could the peeps at Sephora NOT notice that this makeup sponge, which is supposedly patterned after a sea creature, looks like…something else.

  I MEAN COME ON! Allegedly, the ridges have a function other than bringing out your inner dirty birdy.

• Have you been watching The Voice this season? Alicia Keys is one of the judges, and even though I keep being surprised and disappointed by the way the cookie crumbles once the live voting part of the show starts, and the SAME types of singers and styles win over and over again, EVERY SINGLE SEASON, I still like the blind auditions and the battle rounds, which is why I still watch it.

  Anywho, I really didn’t know much about Alicia before the show, other than her songs, which I’ve loved, and then I also remember that I read somewhere that she relatively recently decided to stop wearing makeup.

  But I really liked this piece in Variety where she talks about her views on feminism. She sounds a cool person to have lunch with, and her mom… Oh, wow. Her mom sounds kind of amazing. If adult Connor ever talks about me like Alicia Keys talks about her mom, I’d say I did OK.

• More and more men in China are wearing makeup, and the trend is being driven by male beauty vloggers.

• Kerry Washington’s new Neutrogena collection looks like a neutral and brown eyeshadow person’s dream (MY DREAM) come true. I’m all over this!

• This artist uses her lips as a canvas and often makes references to well-known paintings and objects in nature.

  Sometimes she also paints on her lipstick tubes and adds them to her creations, which I think is super cool!

I feel full-on cheesy right now… I’m deep in Gouda/mozzarella/Parmesan mode today for some reason, and I’d like to remind you, in case you need it, that you can handle anything that comes your way, my love. YOU CAN DO IT!

Have a wonderful weekend, babe. Drop me a line in the comments. 🙂

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Hey, babe, if you need me, and you called a bunch of times and texted and said that nobody can seem to find me because I’ve seemingly disappeared off the face of this earth, then I’m probably just buried under a pile of laundry somewhere in this house.

Please check under the 10-foot-tall mound composed of several layers of baby clothes, bath towels, and 15 pairs of stretchy black leggings.

I was reading through some old journals from college and my early 20s the other day, and I was constantly talking about how I had laundry to do, but back then it was single girl bachelorette laundry, and I’d bring a duffel bag with one or two loads in it to the laundromat across the street, and that was it. It would be like, “OH! I gotta waste two hours doing laundry,” but now that I live with three little animals — a very fluffy cat, a toddler who loves decorating herself and her clothes with food and/or crayons, and El Hub, of course — the laundry is next level, and it runs my world! I can’t escape it.

And even though it’s like I’m always doing laundry, and the washing machine runs almost 24/7 sometimes, I can never get ahead on it, which is totally weird.

I used to save it all for Saturdays, but then I’d be kinda grumpy because I was doing laundry all weekend long, so I switched to doing a load every day during the workweek, but that hasn’t made it any easier. I think it may have actually resulted in even MORE laundry. The laundry’s multiplying, LOL!

There’s always hand towels, bath towels, blankets, so many stinky socks, baby leggings covered in dried yogurt, my shirts, which are always covered in cat fur. It a never ends…

I mean, I’m not complaining… Actually, yes I am. I’m totally complaining, haha! 🙂

[Continue reading…]

So…what is the Monday Poll?

Well, it isn’t exactly a poll. It’s more of a constantly evolving (devolving?), somewhat random list of questions I’ve been putting out to readers every Monday morning for the past 11 (!) years. (It’s like a kickstart for your brain.) I’ve always enjoyed reading your answers in the comments, and I hope you enjoy reading mine.

1. Fringe or ruffles?

I’m gonna go with the one I would put on a wedding dress — ruffles all the way!

Or…one tasteful ruffle. That’s all I need.

2. How old were you the first time you dyed your hair?

Does dyeing my mustache count? Haha.

Off the books, I was in middle school, and there was a bottle of contraband Sun-In involved. I put some in my bangs, but it didn’t really do anything.

The first official time was with hair color out of a box, right when I started college. Jen and I went to the Thrifty in our neighborhood, bought two boxes of blonde hair color (yes, blonde), and used that on my hair to lighten it.

We’d heard from a friend of a friend that that’s what you had to use to lighten black hair… It worked a little. It was kind of reddish and uneven, but thank goodness my hair was dark and you couldn’t really tell how uneven the color was.

3. Can you multitask while you eat?

Honestly, what can’t I do while I’m eating?? I work with a diva kitty and a two year old.

You can do a lot of things with a baby in your lap. Like, I can feed her. I can feed myself. I can pet the cat with my foot. All at the same time.

We were at lunch yesterday sitting outside at a place in Corte Madera, and El Hub couldn’t even eat a sandwich with Connor sitting sidesaddle on his right hip. I kept thinking, “amateur.”

4. Have you ever slept in a tent?

Yes, and I can count them all on one hand. And I plan to keep all the times I ever sleep in a tent on one hand going forward. Because I don’t like sleeping in tents. 🙂

5. What’s something you’d like for your kitchen?

Well, if a complete remodel isn’t an option, I’d love a new sink and faucet… That’s the practical side of me talking. The impractical side of me wants all of the purple Le Creuset pieces I saw at Sur La Table yesterday. There was an ombre baking pan and a purple dutch oven shaped like a flower… I died a little. ?

The pink drink that’s NOT the pink drink

This might look like a pink drink, and when I hold it in my hand and shake the ice cubes around, it sounds like a pink drink, but it’s not a pink drink! You know I’m a Starbucks junkie, and so I’m always trying new things, and this drink is super tasty — not too sugary or calorie laden (if you’re concerned about any of those things). It’s a passion iced tea, unsweetened, with a splash of coconut milk.

It tastes like the pink drink but isn’t nearly as sweet… I think it’s super good! I got this yesterday when I was walking around the mall, and since it looks like it’s going to be sunny here again, I may have to go back for another one.

I hope wherever you are today, you’re feeling warm and happy. 🙂

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

P.S. Here are the questions to copy and paste with your answers in a comment:

1. Fringe or ruffles?
2. How old were you the first time you dyed your hair?
3. Can you multitask while you eat?
4. Have you ever slept in a tent?
5. What’s something you’d like for your kitchen?